Blues Dance New Yorkhttp://bluesdancenewyork.com
Come dance with us!Mon, 02 Mar 2015 20:41:55 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.5Blog Post by a First Time Dancerhttp://bluesdancenewyork.com/2015/02/newdancer/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2015/02/newdancer/#commentsThu, 26 Feb 2015 17:39:07 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=1403Continue reading →]]>Thank you to Miss Manhattan for writing this post about her first time coming out to FNBlues! Below are a few choice quotes that we thought would be helpful to first timers. Go read the full article on her website- she has such a great writing style and is easy to get into and like

“So I arrive and set down my coat, and shortly I’m dancing. And you know what? I’m not half bad! Dancing with some of the more experienced dancers is more challenging, but they are kind and helpful when I don’t understand where I’m supposed to be going. I still giggle nervously and sheepishly say I’m new, but it feels less awkward this time, like it’s just part of the process. I’m allowed to be new. I still notice my brain working overtime when I dance with a more experienced dancer, but then I notice it’s happening and I just pay attention to the movement. “STOP THINKING!” I hear Dan say when I start to get frazzled. And then I just move and it feels good. People ask me to dance multiple times, even. I spin, I slide, I wiggle my hips, I gracefully extend my arms and it feels like this is something I should always be doing. Even in the two short hours I was there, I felt myself improve, learning to relax, learning to improvise, learning to be more confident, learning to laugh at myself and be goofy when it suits me or my partner. And I don’t break my frame…as often (sorry, Dan).

Blues dances are (thankfully) not the typical dance club affair of some dude you don’t know trying to grind his pelvis into your backside. Quite the opposite, you go and people ask you to dance, or you ask them to dance, and you say yes or they say yes and you dance with them for a song, say thank you, and then maybe you dance together again later. Or you say no, and they leave you alone. In an age of catcalling and other regular indecencies, it’s nice to go to a place where manners and decorum are regularly upheld! Do I sound like a 1920s schoolmarm? YES and I don’t care. I don’t know who told guys at clubs or anywhere else that they could come up to you and touch you without your permission, but that doesn’t happen here. It’s a safe, respectful place. I personally like to dance with lots of different people because you never know who will surprise you–never judge a book by its cover because you could be missing out on an amazing partner (unless of course I didn’t enjoy dancing with them the first time, in which case I will respectfully decline). It’s one more thing about the experience that makes it easy to enjoy.”

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2015/02/newdancer/feed/0Why Blues is not West Coast Swinghttp://bluesdancenewyork.com/2015/02/blueswcs/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2015/02/blueswcs/#commentsTue, 17 Feb 2015 20:36:38 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=1339Continue reading →]]>Luckily, there is a lot of crossover between West Coast Swing dancers & Blues dancers. Unfortunately, often there is some confusion as to the differences between the two dances. Alfredo & Flouer decided to make this video so that more people can understand the fundamentals differences between the two forms. We hope this helps you with your enjoyment of both dances. Have fun!

…is a physical training program designed for blues dancers. It is formatted like a work-out session that is meant to take up about 10 minutes of your time 6 days a week. It builds up many of the muscles and coordinations you need in order to fashion yourself into a dancing superstar!

While this particular format of a work-out routine does not speak to me personally, I think it is a wonderful way to train yourself to become a better dancer…and a stronger, healthier person overall. Try it, you might really enjoy it.

Below is the PDF guide to the program. You can either download it directly from the Study Hall Blues site, or just take a look at the JPG version. If you have any questions about the program, you can find Tim O’Neil on facebook, or at one of the many national events he is teaching at. You can also ask Flouer and she can attempt to answer to the best of her knowledge

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2014/10/b90x/feed/0Goodbye Sparkshttp://bluesdancenewyork.com/2014/10/goodbye-sparks/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2014/10/goodbye-sparks/#commentsSun, 12 Oct 2014 03:23:27 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=1223Continue reading →]]>It has been almost 1 year since we have left our first dance home, a magical place where FNBlues was born.

Sparks- a perfect place for blossoming creativity. The home of many epic adventures, love stories, and mishaps. A tiny little studio in the back of a tile shop, with an uneven wooden floor and the night sky painted in Elmer’s glue sparkles. It was dirty. Leaks sprung up everywhere, the bathroom in the hallway almost always broke, and the back room was full of the most random things from all sorts of people. It was home for a long time.

One of my favorite things about New York City is that it is never stagnant. Everything evolves, the clock never stops turning.

The past and the future always inform the present. It is good to live, it is good to remember, and it is good to look forward. As one of my favorite professors always said

“These ARE the good old days.”

Here are some pictures from the last night at Sparks, taken with my phone. These are for our hearts & memories, with the hope that memories will make our futures ever brighter.

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2014/10/goodbye-sparks/feed/0Describe Your Favorite Dance – in 1 Wordhttp://bluesdancenewyork.com/2014/04/favdance/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2014/04/favdance/#commentsSat, 19 Apr 2014 20:27:18 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=889Continue reading →]]>At a recent fundraiser house party for “Them Bad Apples”, Mike and I put up one of our sticky white boards in the bathroom with a couple of markers. On the white board it said

“Give one word to describe your favorite dance moment”

The results are inspiring (and hilarious), so I wanted to share them here with you. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

This is a beautifully written article by one of Alfredo Melendez’s students. It links dance to relationships…relationships to yourself, to your significant other, to your friends, and to the world at large. The same idea of waiting may apply even more to Blues as it does in West Coast Swing. Susan specifically talks about following and to relationships between men & women, but I believe the analogies she makes apply to everyone equally.

Leads and follows alike can learn to have the boldness and confidence to pause and wait for your partner. Do not be afraid of taking your time… in a dance, in a night, in a lifetime!

————————–

Learning to Wait: How West Coast Swing Dancing Taught Me Patience

The summer before my 35th birthday, my life was in the toilet: I’d left my fiancé for very good reasons, and found the single life to be anything but fabulous. The bottom had fallen out in the post-September 11th economy, so my work prospects looked as dismal as my dating life. To make the $1,000 rent for my closet-sized Manhattan studio, I’d taken a job writing emails for Camel cigarettes. I was depressed and worried that this was as good as it was gonna get.

So when my neighbor and fellow salsa-lover suggested we sign up for Latin ballroom dance lessons, I immediately agreed. It was exactly what I needed. I took to it like a fish that had been starved of water its whole life.

No matter how bad a day I’ve had, or how crappy I feel, dancing takes it all away. The young title character in Broadway’s hit Billy Elliott said it best, “…Once I get going I sorta forget everything. I sort of disappear. I can feel a change in my whole body.”

Since then, I’ve studied and competed in over a dozen different dance styles. From salsa and paso doble to two-step, and now west coast swing. And while they all involve a man leading a woman across the dance floor, everything else about each dance is wildly different. So it must be more than a crazy coincidence that no matter what dance I gravitate to at any given moment, it always teaches me exactly what I’m working on interpersonally. Back then it was learning to follow. Today it’s patience. More specifically, waiting.

“The waiting is the hardest part” ~ Tom Petty
Ever since ending my last relationship with a man I deeply loved, it’s been as if I enrolled in graduate school for waiting. Waiting to see what he would do, if our love would prevail, if and when we would be together again, and after accepting that was not to be — now waiting for someone better to appear in my life.

Waiting has always been so incredibly painful for me. I have always felt behind. I have a clear memory of arriving at Cedar Point, every Cleveland kid’s favorite summer amusement park, and having an 8-year-old anxiety attack because my parents weren’t moving fast enough. I was convinced that if we didn’t start running from ride to ride, I would miss something. Not much has changed in three decades. I’m still this way when I get to a big social event or I’m with people I haven’t seen in a while. I want to hurry up for fear of missing something.

As a result, I don’t enjoy the moment as much as I can — or the people I’m with. I’m saying “Hi, how are you?” but my mind is racing: where’s the coat check, which bar is less crowded, how can I get there fastest…?” I’m like a Special Ops team leader, calculating exit strategies. I’m not able to enjoy each moment as it happens, because I’m always three moments ahead.

My compulsion was met head on with reality when I left Thom. It was like immersion therapy for the waiting-deficient. Suddenly, time was all I had: to think, and wonder. Would he face his issues, would we work things out down the line? Were we meant to be together…? Tried as I might to rush the process, all I continued to do was add to my anxiety.

So when my pain turned to despair the following fall, I turned to dance to help heal my heart. I needed something physical to take my mind off Thom, to give my brain something new to “solve,” and get me out of the apartment a couple nights a week. I’d always wanted to master west coast swing: a sexy, slippery-smooth partner dance you can do to everything from B.B. King to Justin Timberlake. But I quickly discovered there was a bonus. As luck would have it, west coast swing is the PERFECT dance to learn the importance of waiting.

My compassionate west coast swing instructor, Alfredo Melendez, says he sees this all the time.

“Whether it’s a tendency to be impatient, nervous, or overly aggressive — these ‘quirks’ that we all have manifest themselves in dance. And if someone pursues partner dancing intensely enough, they will actually be able to work through it.”

“I had major self-confidence issues that I uncovered when I started dancing,” Alfredo confides at the end of an early lesson. “Once I overcame that, my dancing got better — but it also affected the rest of my life. My self-confidence improved, on AND off the dance floor,” he says.

Dance therapy — it makes sense.

“There’s a constant communication going on when you’re dancing, most of it nonverbal.” ~ Suzanne Perez in ‘Psychology Today’

Partner dancing is the physical manifestation of how we relate to others. Each dance is a non-verbal conversation. If you’re the type to lead every exchange, talk over others, and feel comfortable being the center of attention — I can pretty much promise you that you will have trouble “following” on the dance floor. Conversely, if you are hesitant to speak your mind and suffer from low-self esteem — chances are you’ll be a weak “leader.”

But here’s the good news: if you’re open and willing to change, the dance floor is a fun and fantastic place to learn to do it differently. For both men and women.

I asked Alfredo what he sees the most as an issue for his female students. “Patience and trust. In themselves, as well as in their partner.”

This is no surprise to me.

“By being patient and a little more trustful of the process, women are able to follow better and have more fun.” He’s talking about dancing, but I hear so much more.

“Let him find you” ~ Alfredo Melendez
Two months into my private lessons and it’s clear that my personal demons have followed me onto the dance floor. I have no patience. And in an attempt to “get it right,” I have a tendency to try harder and hold on to him tighter. Just as I did with Thom, texting and pushing him (“Have you fixed it yet…??”) in the months after I left.

Alfredo (and his sore arm) notices and tries to help. “Don’t hold on so tight. Trust that I’ll be there. Wait…”

I try, but keep doing it. The moment I’m done with one move, I rush into the next — before he’s even led it. This made the liquid style of west-coast swing impossible for me.

“In dance — and especially west coast swing — if you don’t wait, you won’t know what your partner wants you to do next,” Alfredo explains.

How common is this in everyday life? How often do I dive right into a conversation, thinking I have all the answers before I even listen to the end of someone’s sentence? Sometimes I’m right, but even so — I often leave my “partner” feeling unheard and dismissed.

Back on the dance floor, Alfredo corrects me as I finish one turn and immediately reach for his hand.

“You have to let go of the leading hand, and let him find you — so he can lead the next move. You’re actually still in a position of power, because the next move can’t happen until you see what your partner leads. And then YOU get to decide how to respond.”

I realize how true this all is with love as well. If you don’t wait to see what the guy does on his own, you’ll never know what he’s capable of.

The truth is, I’ve never seen waiting as a position of power. Quite the opposite actually. I honestly loathe waiting for men. They’re often so painfully slow with everything: returning phone calls, making plans, deciding if they can face their demons and start a life with you… little things like that. But waiting to see what the other person does next gives you a great advantage.

There is great power in staying still or silent. You can respond appropriately, instead of misfiring with the wrong thought, emotion, or desire. As a creative person, it’s always so tempting to react with a question or sharp come back. But sometimes you misread the situation and you can never take that back.

As I slowly start to embrace the benefits of waiting, I start to feel its power. If my last date doesn’t say something worth responding to in his post-dinner text message, instead of firing back with something witty, I wait and see what happens next. What he does or doesn’t do is valuable information.I’ve learned to only move when there’s something worth moving for. Or towards.

Waiting gives you the space to see what’s really going on. And gives men time to catch up. We women really are often too fast for our own good. In fact, it’s a spiritual belief that this is why women are here. The Kabbalists teach that only male souls have to come back to earth to learn more. Female souls are more evolved, and they CHOOSE to come back — to help the men. In return, men teach us the one thing we still need to learn: patience.

To listen, on and off the dance floor, you not only have to wait, but you have to give the other person room to feel heard. Something I haven’t always done. Which is awful and now seems so selfish. I have a bad habit of filling in the silences: with friends, coworkers, and definitely with Thom — who found talking about his feelings as painful as root canal without Novocain. So in an attempt to help, I’d nudge him along and fill in the silences.

I thought I was helping. Instead, I now see I was shutting him down. Just as a bad follower will shut down her dance partner trying to “back-lead,” Thom stopped trying to share his own thoughts because he didn’t think I would listen. We both paid dearly for his not speaking up, and my not shutting up.

“Everything in its perfect time.”
After weeks of doing it wrong in my lessons, I start to enjoy the pauses. I begin to feel the power in not responding until I have more information from Alfredo. I’m getting better at listening to unspoken cues, and there’s much more of a “conversation” taking place this way. But without periods at the end of the sentences.

For the first time, I’m not in as much of a rush to fit the steps in as I think they should happen. I know they can wait, they can happen later — three beats later. Which is nothing, and everything for a recovering control freak like me. And miraculously, they’re even better — more beautiful — than if I had rushed them.

This lesson is beyond bittersweet when I think of how it could have benefitted me in the past. But I have to believe that I’m “here” now, in this waiting place, to learn the patience I need to help me where I’m going. So I practice daily. On the dance floor and off – which can be much harder. It’s one thing to be patient for a ride on the tilt-a-whirl or your turn at the Starbucks counter, and a whole other level of serenity at my age to master zen-like faith that love is just around the corner. But I’m doing my best. Because if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that we never know what’s around the bend, and everything is always possible.

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/12/waiting/feed/0Etiquette for Blueshttp://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/11/etiquette-for-blues/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/11/etiquette-for-blues/#commentsSun, 03 Nov 2013 18:49:45 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=570Continue reading →]]>These are some helpful guidelines for those who are new to blues dancing, and some reminders to those of us who have been around for awhile. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the production of this document!

These are some helpful guidelines for those who are new to blues dancing, and some reminders to those of us who have been around for awhile. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the production of this document!

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/11/etiquette-for-blues/feed/0Understanding Pulse for Jazz Musicianshttp://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/10/understanding-pulse-for-jazz-musicians/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/10/understanding-pulse-for-jazz-musicians/#commentsWed, 02 Oct 2013 17:29:20 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=565Continue reading →]]>Here is a very interesting article sent to me by Cristine. It gives the argument for using pulse in jazz music, rather than a metronome for your timing. Interesting read, and makes you think about what tempo actually is. How do you tap into the natural rhythms of the song and your body, rather than reproducing the effects of a mechanical device?

Should You Practice Jazz With A Metronome?

Should You Practice Jazz With A Metronome?

In MHO, absolutely not! Why? Because a metronome clicking is not a pulse. What is a pulse anyway? The sound of your heart beating. It produces a throbbing, pumping kind of feeling as opposed to the monotonous, soulless clicking of a metronome. All of the great jazz musicians of the past such as Dizzy, Charlie Parker, Cannonball, John Coltrane, Erroll Garner, etc., display this kind of sound in their time keeping.

One of my former students, Adam Rafferty, who refers to me as his “mentor”, created quite a controversy on many of the internet jazz chat rooms with an article he wrote advising people not to use a metronome when they practice. He, of course, learned that concept from me when he was my student.

There is a practice among some of the jazz educators to encourage musicians to practice with the metronome clicking on 2 and 4. In my estimation this is probably one of the worst things a musician can do and practically destroys the ability to ever swing. I’m sure there is no malicious attempt on the part of the educators, and they sincerely believe they are “helping” students by having them do this. The sad thing is there is a type of playing and a kind of “music” that can result from this. The question becomes…does it swing? Does it produce a positive reaction in the listener? In other words, does it make people who listen to it feel good? In my opinion, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Since this is a common practice being used in many jazz education environments and since the popularity of jazz has diminished in alarming proportions, I suggest that educators might want to question if there might be a connection.

I recall an incident that occurred during the sixties. At that time a huge controversy started to develop along racial lines with jazz musicians. A polarization between African American and Caucasian musicians began emerging in which the African American players were complaining that the “white cats” were getting all the gigs and they couldn’t swing. The incident I recall was an interview in Downbeat Magazine in which the great alto saxophonist, Cannonball Adderley, was asked to comment on this topic. What he said in essence was that the “black musicians play with a pulse and the whites do not.” He went on to clarify that “there are exceptions of course. No one in their right mind would claim that Zoot Simms does not swing.” Since I was a young aspiring jazz pianist at the time and since my path as a jazz musician actually started with playing with Cannonball in South Florida when I was in high school, I was “crushed” when I read it. It caused me great anguish and feelings of insecurity at the time, which I eventually got over. In retrospect I think he had a point to a certain extent, although at the present I believe it has little to do with a person’s race and more to do with keeping time to a “pulse” rather than to a “clock.” I also believe this is something that anyone from any race is capable of doing.

It appears to me that educators who are proponents of the 2 and 4 metronome practice have little or no regard for the role that “body rhythm” plays in this music. There are many film clips available on the Internet of jazz greats like Dizzy Gillespie performing. Dizzy was fond of dancing along with the music while his group was performing. Even while he was playing his own solos one could perceive the way he was patting his foot and moving his body as he played. All one has to do is try to move that way while a metronome is clicking and see if it works. I think anyone who attempts this exercise will discover that IT DEFINITELY DOES NOT!

If one observes the way Count Basie pats his foot while playing they will discover this discrepancy even further.

I had a young guitar student who was studying privately with me while attending a university jazz department trying to get a degree in jazz performance. He was proclaiming how much his playing was improving from the things I was teaching him and how it was producing gigs and income for him. Then one day he came to a lesson very upset and perplexed. He claimed the guitar teacher at the university was telling him to do things that ran contrary to what I was teaching him. He reported that the guitar teacher showed him a clip on You Tube of a guitarist playing a solo while placing the microphone on the floor next to a metronome clicking on 2 and 4. I observed this clip and found that the playing displayed a tremendous amount of technique with speed and velocity as well as a ton of notes. But it was not producing anything I wanted to listen to, nor did it swing. The student proclaimed that the teacher told him, “This is why you should practice with the metronome on 2 and 4” to which I responded by sending the teacher a clip of Wes Montgomery and his group playing “Impressions” with the drummers high hat popping on 2 and 4 in a manner that started your foot tapping involuntarily from the first bar on. I sent a note along stating, “This is why you shouldn’t practice that way.”

Further evidence that supports that there is a ring of truth to my theory is the following. Try taking any classic jazz recording that has withstood the test of time and has everyone agreeing on the fact that it swings and see if you can get a metronome to stay with the music on that recording. Obviously you cannot, and obviously the musicians were keeping time differently than the way a metronome clicks.

Another observation one must consider is that the metronome was never invented as a tool for practicing. Its primary purpose was a means of indicating the approximate rate of speed or tempo at which a piece of music should begin. It was invented during Beethoven’s lifetime and since most proponents of the use of a metronome believe it produces “good time” in musicians who practice to it, one would have to ask does that mean that musicians who preceded Beethoven, such as Mozart, Haydn, Handel, and Bach had “bad time?’

I read where one proponent of the use of the metronome claimed it produces an evenness of notes and perfect timing and technique in music students. It also produces music that hardly anyone wants to listen to in my estimation. Especially jazz music. I have been playing since the age of three and began formal study at the age of four. I can recall that my first teacher had me practicing scales to a metronome, and I must admit that I couldn’t stay with the metronome at first. At the point that I was able to, however, I knew instinctively as a four year old that I didn’t need that thing any more. But I do admit that it served a purpose up to that point. I believe the purpose was muscular coordination however and admit that the metronome was of some value in that regard. Most jazz musicians attending jazz education facilities have already passed the point of being a four year old without muscular coordination on a musical instrument however. I strongly believe that practicing jazz to a metronome clicking is tantamount to “swing suicide”. I know there are those who proclaim that they have “gone way beyond swinging” and that what they are doing is the “new thing.” I must say, however, that musicians who can’t swing have been around for a long time – way before I was born as a matter of fact and not swinging can hardly be considered “something new.” Some of what has resulted from this “new thing” has been publicists no longer wanting to take on jazz projects because many publications no longer want to write about today’s jazz due to lack of interest from the public. Also “jazz festivals” are now featuring artists that are more related to hip hop and R & B than jazz as we used to know it. And jazz clubs are closing world wide due to a lack of an audience, and the list goes on and on.

As far as producing evenness of notes and great technique I must relate a story concerning Adam Rafferty mentioned earlier. At one point in his studies with me he asked my advice about how to improve his chops. I recommended that he practice Hanon exercises and scales and arpeggios while putting a pulse on every note by tapping his foot to every note he played. The result was a virtuosic technique, which is evident in his playing and attested by any of his many fans and fellow guitarists. He has a book out on this very subject, which I would highly recommend to all guitarists regardless of the style of music you are playing.

The following is a list of quotes from prominent people in the music world who share many of the same opinions I have stated here:

Duke Ellington disdained the “soulless” quality and “continual churning” of certain rhythm sections. Uninspired metronomic time-keeping caused “apathy in the section[s],” he wrote in 1931, and a loss of interest among the musicians whose “performance becomes stodgy and mechanical.”

— Joel Dinerstein; Swinging the machine (2003)..

this series of even, perfectly quantized, 16th notes, is no more evocative of samba, than a metronome would be. In fact, this representation neglects what makes up the samba essence in the first place — the swing![1]

— Pedro Batista; Understanding the Samba Groove

Another thing that becomes clear …, is how much the listener’s perception of rhythm differs from the reality of the metronome. While Feuermann’s performances seemed to provide the clearest “feel” of the beat — meaning that to a listener, the rhythm and tempo seemed the most clear and compelling — when trying to set a metronome, one found a slightly changing tempo throughout almost every measure — a constant rhythmic “push and pull” — making metronome indications sometimes recordable only as a range between two or three adjacent markings or as an average. At the same time, other performers … whose performances did not yield to the ear as strong a sense of tempo or rhythm, fit more easily within a specific metronome marking. From this, it is clear that the feeling and perception of rhythm are conveyed much more by the performers choice of emphasis or “pulse” than by strict adherence to any absolute metronomic rhythm.[31]

And many recent recordings of pop music demonstrate how music is killed by a metronome for they are as square as a draftsman’s T. For the convenience of recording engineers, each player has to record their part on a separate track while listening to a click track — a metronome — and the clicks are then used to synchronize the tracks while the technicians adjust them to their taste and mix them. I know talented young musicians who can’t do it; we can understand why. Nothing compares with a recording of a live performance in which the players provide each other with the time-framework.[...] if you want to kill a musical performance, give the player a click track! [33]

— James Beament; How we hear music: the relationship between music and the hearing mechanism

Hence, also, you realize the folly of imagining that a Metronome can serve as a Time-teacher. You see, the pupil has to learn to play to a pulse-throb of his own making all the while, it is therefore of very little use indeed learning to pay obedience to an outside, machine-made Pulse-throb. And in any case, a Metronome is apt to kill the finer Time-sense implied by Rubato.[28]

— Tobias Matthay (1858-1945); Musical interpretation : its laws and principles, and their application in teaching and performing (c1913)

[...] early nineteenth century [...]. There was little interest in using the metronome to tick all the way through a piece of music. But this is how the device is used by conservatory students today.

— James R. Heintze; Reflections on American music: the twentieth century and the new millennium : a collection of essays presented in honor of the College Music Society by (Pendragon Press, 2000)

In general, we think it a great mistake to attempt any metrical adaption of the plain-chant; it shows that the adapter scarcely recognises the difference between the rhythm of oratory and the rhythm of music. Declamation cannot be measured by the beats of a metronome, or by the sequences of accents in a bar; it depends on the sense or the articulate sound of the words or syllables. The plain-chant seems intended to preserve this declamatory rhythm; and therefore any metrical arrangement goes far to destroy its distinctive character.[29]

— The Rambler, Volumes 3-4, 1860

100 according to Maelzel, but this must be held applicable to only the first measures, for feeling also has its tempo and this cannot entirely be expressed in this figure.[25]

I do not mean to say that it is necessary to imitate the mathematical regularity of the metronome, which would give the music thus executed an icy frigidity; I even doubt whether it would be possible to maintain this rigid uniformity for more than a few bars.[26]

— Hector Berlioz; A treatise upon modern instrumentation and orchestration

A metronomical performance is certainly tiresome and nonsensical; time and rhythm must be adapted to and identified with the melody, the harmony, the accent and the poetry…[22] — Franz Liszt; Letter to Siegmund Lebert (10 Jan. 1870)

The musician who relies on metronomic markings has divorced himself from the inner life (which is a rhythmic life) of the music. He is no longer living out the drama from within, or singing the melody with his heart; he is immune to the ‘sortilège’. [...] rhythm as something organic and unpredictable [...]. But there is no doubt that it persists. It lies behind the notorious complaint, heard even from very skillful players, that the metronome ‘sounds wrong’. — Louis Wirth Marvick; Waking the face that no one is (page 12)

To be emotional in musical interpretation, yet obedient to the initial tempo and true to the metronome, means about as much as being sentimental in engineering. Mechanical execution and emotion are incompatible. To play Chopin’s G major Nocturne with rhythmic rigidity and pious respect for the indicated rate of movement would be as intolerably monotonous, as absurdly pedantic, as to recite Gray’s famous Elegy to the beating of a metronome.[20]— Ignacy Jan Paderewski;

There is an immense amount of metrical playing and singing in the world [...] : there is too little rhythmic reality. And if you habitually play or sing thousands of metrical phrases without transmuting them into your own rhythms, you will become a metronomical musician[11].— Walford Daviesm, Harvery Grace; Music Worship (1935)

How any musician could ever play with a metronome, passes my humble understanding. It is not only an inartistic, but a downright antiartistic instrument.[10] — Constantin von Sternberg; Ethics and aesthetics of piano playing

Paderewski plays the rhapsodies like improvisations — inspirations of the moment. It is the negation of the mechanical in music, the assassination of the metronome. When ordinary pianists play a Liszt rhapsody, there is nothing in their performance that a musical stenographer could not note down just as it is played. But what Paderewski plays could not be put down on paper by any system of notation ever invented. For such subtle nuances of tempo and expression there are no signs in our musical alphabet. But it is precisely these unwritten and unwritable things that constitute the soul of music and the instinctive command of which distinguishes a genius from a mere musician. [7]

The metronome [...] a lifeless, soulless machine, cannot express the meaning, the object of inspiration, it cannot be used as a means to develop emotion – guided by a machine the performance is wholly mechanical.[6] — Robert Challoner; History of the science and art of music: Its origin, development, and progress (1880)

As a seasoned clubgoer raised on a healthy diet of DJs who reveled in variations (think mood, tempo, emotion, and rhythm) in the course of one evening, I find most nights out now numbingly boring. I’ve never been fond of DJs whose sets rely on relentless, dare I say monotonous beats. [...] metronome-like tracks.[34] — Michael Paoletta; Billboard Sep 22, 2001

[...] using the metronome as a constant guide to ramp up the speed or to keep the rhythm. This is one of the worst abuses of the metronome. [...] If over used, it can lead to loss of your internal rhythm, loss of musicality, and bio-physical difficulties from over-exposure to rigid repetition[3]

— Chuan C. Chang; Fundamentals of Piano Practice

“Never play with a metronome [...] the keeping of absolutely strict time is thoroughly unmusical and deadlike”[36]

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/10/understanding-pulse-for-jazz-musicians/feed/0Immersion Workshop MashUp- Feb 2013http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/06/immersionfeb2013/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/06/immersionfeb2013/#commentsThu, 20 Jun 2013 16:23:29 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=530Continue reading →]]>Here is a little mash-up video of our group presentations from the last workshop! The Focus was “Smooth Aesthetics”. We talked about things like balance, stretch, compression, and spent a ton of time on transitions. Congrats everyone, and thanks for having so much fun with us!

]]>http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/06/immersionfeb2013/feed/0Philly Invasion Video!http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/05/philly-invasion-video/
http://bluesdancenewyork.com/2013/05/philly-invasion-video/#commentsWed, 29 May 2013 05:28:31 +0000http://bluesdancenewyork.com/?p=524Continue reading →]]>Thank you to everyone for coming out to the Philadelphia Invasion last Friday, May 24th. It was a truly epic night! We had 11 people from Philly come in to teach, DJ and dance; and we had 5 people from Albany come down on the same night! The music was great, the dancing was great, and we all had a blast @ la Nacional.

The Philly dancers send their love and gratitude for a wonderful night, and are hoping that we will come down to invade them in their home town very soon. Lets make it happen